Stop Trying to Avoid Losing and Start Winning: ���How BS 8878 Reframes the Accessibility Question

Prof Jonathan Hassell, Visiting Professor London Metropolitan University, Director of Hassell Inclusion, Lead-author of BS 8878 (@jonhassell)

IWMW 2013 27th June 2013

The current pain…

•  Most organisations are terrified about accessibility

•  They don’t understand people who are disabled… who always seem to ask for the impossible… at crunch times in a website’s time-constrained development

•  They feel whatever they do is probably not enough, but don’t know how far they need to go

•  And they don’t know if there’s anything in it for them other than risk mitigation

•  Worse, if they get anything right, it’s usually only for one product, or one version of a product…

•  Or it’s because of one committed, passionate individual… whose eventual departure leaves them needing to start all over again

‘what I want is to strategically embed inclusion ���into [my organisation’s] culture ���and business-as-usual processes, ���

rather than just doing another inclusion project’ Most common request ���

from Heads of Diversity & Inclusion���Vanguard Network 2011

Where you want to be…

‘Adapting to responsive web design has required a complete redefinition of how we approach the web at Jisc infoNet. It's had an effect on every part of the service; not just in web development but from content management and creating resources, to our processes,

workflows and how we manage web projects.’

Abstract of David Cornforth @ JISC InfoNet’s talk ���straight after me here at IWMW-13

As you’d like to be with many other web issues…

But the accessibility world’s solutions often seem ���piecemeal and tactical, not strategic

And often seem like competition for your time, ���rather than linking in with any other useful web strategies

Social & search strategy

Mobile strategy (apps,responsive design)

Open data strategy

User ���experience strategy

Content strategy

So how do most do accessibility? ���Do the bare minimum… then all hands to the pump to fix things…

But to fix it, ���you don’t just need to do this..

���You also need to do this…

And you need to fix the problem in the process, not the product, ���to prevent it re-occurring

You need to make everyone involved in making your products ���engaged and responsible, not just the ‘accessibility superhero’

Designers Writers

Project Mgrs Product Mgrs

Finance Legal Marketing Strategy

Research & Testers Developers

Snr Mgrs

‘Most internal web teams in higher education agree their web strategy is being held back by the culture and organisation of the institution. Unfortunately

[they] feel unable to bring about change. They feel like a small cog in a very big machine…’

Abstract of Paul Boag @ Headscape’s talk���at 14:45 today, here at IWMW-13

This is hard…

Especially if you’re not clear why you should do it in the first place…

We need to reframe the accessibility conversation…

Source: DFEE

11m disabled people

12m older

people (of pension age)

7m adults with low-literacy levels

(<age 11)

Opportunity: the commercial business case ���– maximising reach

+

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Embedding: motivation… competence… process…

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Created by accessibility experts from:

The people behind BS 8878… Training already delivered to: Reviewed publicly worldwide by:

•  328 accessibility experts worldwide

•  incl: experts in personalisation, aging, mobile accessibility, IPTV, inclusive design, usability, user-research and testing, disability evangelism

Rob Wemyss Head of Accessibility Royal Mail Group

BS 8878 has given us a framework to help reduce costs and improve our quality when delivering accessible web products for our customers.

Uses WCAG 2.0 for what it’s good at…

���Not what it isn’t…

Or choose the guidelines for your product & audience…

Make your product mould itself to one set of guidelines…

Building a better product… not just a compliant one

•  Well-known American pioneer of Inclusive Design

•  Sam Farber’s wife, a keen cook, suffered from arthritis… “Why do ordinary kitchen tools hurt your hands?”

•  First 15 products launched in 1990 •  Sales growth over 35% per year from

1991 to 2002 •  The line has now grown to over 500

products •  Over 100 design awards received

BS 8878’s process in 88 seconds

Book available ���from BSI Press Q3-2013

email: book@hassellinclusion.com

Including interview with Brian Kelly (and

many others)

If you need support & training – I’m happy to help...

Training & support for Embedding

Standards

Innovation

www.hassellinclusion.com

hassellinclusion

Strategy & research

Get latest news, tools, blogs, training: www.hassellinclusion.com/bs8878/

Join the community: www.meetup.com/bs8878-web-accessibility/

e: jonathan@hassellinclusion.com t: @jonhassell w: www.hassellinclusion.com